"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate. Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders."
Price: $250,000. With "parameters" said to ensure that that the newspaper "did not in any way compromise our integrity" (such as it was).
July 2, 2009
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32 comments:
Can't lose what you don't have.
-cough-WHORE-cough--
This is a one-day story, and obviously the WaPo has a lot of credibility among many and is useful to a good number of powerful people. If anyone wants to do something about that that will have an actual long-term impact, highlight their reporters' lies and misleading statements. Here's a partial list of my attempts to do that. So far that's mostly a solitary quest since few others are willing or able to do anything effective.
Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Don't we need a "WaPo is like a whore" tag?
This could only happen in the first place if White House members consented.
Obama Administration: WORST. CRONYISM. EVER.
And it's only been 6 months - WOW!
The question to ask is:
How many times has the WaPo or other media outlet done the exact same thing?
It's a reasonable question to ask and worth somebody doing some digging to find out.
We found out about this because it was leaked. Does anyone here believe that it wasn't going to happen if the general public hadn't found out?
A second question: Although the fact that they were charging money makes it especially grevious, how does it jibe with journalistic ethics in any way to be involved in setting up a "cozy evening"?
That they even considered such a thing - whether or not they were going to charge money for the privilege of access - should be an outrage to both sides of the political aisle.
It wasn't really "leaked": they printed up a flier. You have very little chance of bringing down the WaPo over this or other things like it. The thing to do is to go after their reporters individually, by name and by striking at their core conceipt: of being journalists. If you show enough of them that the WaPo-style of journalism isn't good for their reputations, the WaPo is going to have a hard time finding front people. The WaPo can want to tell all the lies it wants, but it won't be able to if no one is willing to put their reputations on the line to do it.
Lonewacko -
They printed up a flier, but it certainly wasn't meant for public consumption. It was a private communication which was never intended for anyone outside of its targeted audience to see.
They certainly never expected a lobbyist to go public with it. It was a pure fluke that we even know about it which begs the question of how many times has it gone on without anyone being the wiser and who else, beside the WaPo is engaging in it?
I don't expect to "bring down" the Washington Post, any more than I expect that journalists are going to do anything other than delete your emails or erase your phone messages.
What I do expect is that some organizations like the Washington Times to do some digging on what is quite potentially a big story.
Maybe there's no there after all, and this is one-time mistake. But until the right questions have been asked of the right people, we'll never know.
We see that numerous members of the left commentariat coordinate their talking points through a private usergroup, now we find the WaPo selling influence (what else can we call it?) with what would have to be the acquiescence if not the direct approval, of the White House. Explain to me again why we should consider anything that these clowns say as having any credibility whatsoever?
What might be worse, by the way, is not so much what is said (i.e. what stories are told and how they are told), but what is left unsaid or ignored....
Leftism at its finest. Culture of corruption my ass.
The WaPo is a business, not a pillar of integrity.
People look in all the wrong places for things.
In its quest to make the late Huey P. Long look like a rank amateur, the Washington POST advertises its services in a way that reminds me of Spitzer's favorite Emperors Club VIP.
Which POST opinion shapers were designated as "Kristen" for the evening, the part so ably played earlier in the Mayflower Hotel by Ashley Dupre'?
Is AIPAC a charter paying member of the "dinners", "Salons", or are they considered part of "the right people" - who were to be either free attendees or additional "Kristens" ?
Another clear example of the new Aristocratic governing tradition of the King and his court of nobles. Not that there is anything wrong with that in Europe or in Kenya. It's just that it is 100% Un-American. Happy 4th Of July to all of you subjects of King Obama I. Somehow I cannot see Sarah Palin ever doing this evil sort of stuff to our country. Someone in the media needs to care who wins elections now the the Demonrats are all acting like a Marxist/Socialists Aristocracy. Who will want to fight for Free Health Care and Freedom from using our God given Energy Supplies instead of for Freedom to live our own lives and spend our own money? Can you just see Al Franken as the mad hatter in Obama's Kingdom?
they are who we thought they were
I was struck by the sharp disavowals by the CEO and Editor. (mylocal paper).
1. This obviously wasn't something that some low level manager thought up. You don't schedule an event in your CEO's private home, 3 weeks in the future without getting complete buy-in on your business plan.
2. same with the Executive Editor, who is "hosting" one of the Salons
3. I smirked when I read that it was a Lobbyist who blew the whistle on this obviously tawdry affair. Who'd a thunk that a Lobbyist would have more journalist ethics that the Publisher of the WaPo. Katherine Graham must be turning over in her grave. She had so much class. Her Lawyer Granddaughter, not so much. Obviously ethics are not in the sylabus at Harvard and Stanford.
4. it demonstrates the unholy partnership between the press and the Obama agenda.
5. disgusting. priceless, but disgusting
In a corrupt to the core one party system all government spending/projects are open to the highest bidder. The WAPO just went into the related Autioneer business for a commission. Don't blame them, blame the one party monopoly of power. Who voted in the crooks? Reader of the WAPO among others. But enough about real life, Michael Jackson's ascension into fantasy heaven is the story du jour.
Were was this Wapo when Jack Abramoff needed them?
riffin off Traditionalguy,
How's that vote for President looking now Althouse?
Waiting for our liberal commenters to point out how Bush did this and sent Rummy and Wolfy to the salons run by the WaPo and NYT for a significant monetary contribution---oh wait..They didnt do that?
Will be interesting to see the responses from our resident left of center commenters---Too bad we can run some sort of pool.
oh--and I should apologize for dragging the NYT into this--although methinks they just didnt think of first
The Obama Chicago crime syndicate in full flower.
Soon all the players will be sitting around a table, and BHO will take a bat to one of them.
The bureaucrats should be ashamed. They should be run out of town over something like this. Of course, they aren't, and they won't be.
Of course people will pay for access and people will set up access for pay if that's the sort of government you've got running.
Disgusting.
I realized who the press is a long time ago. I am no longer shocked by stuff like this (though I am still disgusted).
The insufferable Washington elitists actually do believe they are the movers and the shakers and the people who make things happen.
What about the rest of us schmucks who only work our tails off in order to send ridiculous amounts of personal income to Washington in the way of taxes? WE are the underwriters, and you had best never forget that.
Obviously ethics are not in the syllabus at Harvard and Stanford.
Oh please. If you don't have ethics/morals by the time you get to college and grad school, you are not going to acquire them there.
The Washington Post and New York Times are doing what they're doing so that we won't miss them when they're gone. Think of it as a public service.
and that BS that Gibbs is handing out to the "press", about how nobody in the WH was involved, invited, etc. BULL.
In the Obama administration if you want to sell access and influence it must be to the WH.
Cabinet Secretaries have been neutered. Hell look at Hillary, she has at least one Cabinet ranked official that in theory reports to her, who doesn't (Susan Rice), plus special Envoys out the wazzoo.
The decision makers are all these Czars, unconfirmed by the Senate who reside in the WH. From Rahm down to the 31 y/o Yale law dropout who runs the auto industry.
The most extensive consolidation of power beyond reach of the public and the Senate in the history of the Republic.
From the LAT:
Kris Coratti, a spokeswoman for the newspaper, said Weymouth and Brauchli knew there would be revenue drawn from the dinners. But they thought there would be a minimum of two sponsors -- thus limiting the financial influence of any one group, she said. The flier, in contrast, said there would be a maximum of two.
Despite their denials, this was always planned to bring money in. This was always a pay-for-access deal. Their only quibble is that the flier mischaracterized the way that those with access were expected to pay for their access.
and still waiting for our left of center commenters--apparently the DNC is slow getting out the talking points
Possible spin:
"See you, the little guys, you get access for free. Really! Just shoot us an email, and we're on it. That's why we have townhalls. That way you rubes... erm, common folk can tell us your sorrows.
"It's those big, bad corporations that have to pay."
how do i subscribe to journolist? would love to be a fly on the wall to witness that freakout.
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